The “drive-through province” problem: New Brunswick’s transit space tourism, 1929-1999
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Date
2024-12
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University of New Brunswick
Abstract
This dissertation examines New Brunswick’s multi-decade change from a destination space to a transit space for modern leisure motorists. New Brunswick’s recreational reputation as a rustic sporting destination was originally manufactured by provincial authorities in the late 19th and early 20th century. This successful marketing scheme failed to keep pace with popular tourism trends, however, especially as automobility reshaped consumer experiences of travel time and relationships to destination spaces. Modernizing automobility and expanding road systems compressed time-space across North America, and the small province of New Brunswick struggled to maintain a competitive tourism identity. In response to these forces, aggressive provincial investments to improve infrastructure and launch marketing campaigns reframed the province as an attractive location easily reached and enjoyed by car. While proactive and innovative, many of these efforts only temporarily relieved what I describe as the province’s “transit space problem.” New Brunswick’s complex tourism history has been overshadowed by the perception that it is largely a “drive-through province.” Yet, archival evidence demonstrates a long-developing transit space problem was neither inevitable nor passively accepted. As a contribution to the historiography of tourism, this dissertation captures a rare transit space case-study applicable beyond Atlantic Canada and demonstrates that even a “drive-through province” deserves sustained historical examination.